The Braille Alphabet: A Simple Guide

How the Braille cell works

Braille is built from a “cell” of six dot positions arranged in two columns of three. By raising different combinations of dots, each cell represents a letter, number or symbol. Readers feel the patterns with their fingertips, which is why Braille is a tactile system, not just a visual one.

Letters and numbers

The first ten letters (A–J) use the top four dot positions. Letters K–T repeat those patterns with an extra bottom-left dot, and U–Z add more dots again. Numbers reuse the A–J patterns preceded by a special “number sign”, so the reader knows to interpret them as digits.

Grade 1 vs Grade 2 Braille

Grade 1 is letter-for-letter (uncontracted) Braille — the simplest form, and what our translator produces. Grade 2 adds contractions (single cells that stand for common words or letter groups) to save space and speed up reading; it varies by language and is what most published Braille uses.

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